Shakespearean Lesbians
by Wolfstare
Summary: Much Ado About Nothing, ACT IV, with a queer twist! Claudio ain't nothin' in front of Margaret and Hero's forbidden love. Woe to the wedding, the groom, and those who stick their noses where they shouldn't. Benedict is out for his friends' happiness while Beatrice is just along for the ride. Something sweet for those who just couldn't sit down and take the ending as it was.


_ What a beautiful wedding! _This is exactly what everyone in the church is currently thinking. They should, considering it is her wedding day. A very beautiful day, in a beautiful church, with beautiful people surrounding her. A particularly beautiful man is waiting for her at the altar... and she is taking her sweet time getting there.

In fact, she thinks she doesn't even want to waltz herself to him, in front of everyone. In this beautiful white dress, displayed on her body for family and townspeople to see, she feels quite empty, despite the festivities. She feels so particularly empty, especially beside the stunning Margaret, who is staring into the mirror as Hero herself stares into the reflective surface. Two exceptional people gazing at each other, forlorn.

Margaret blinks, her sage eyes starting their own conversation. _Do you really think you can do this? _

Hero blinks, her gray eyes holding back tears. _I do not wish to, but I must._

Margaret nods to the mirror; she nods to Hero. Hero doesn't move; she doesn't feel as if she can.

There is a large, carved door nearby, one that will lead them down the aisle and to the altar. However, to Hero, this will only lead her to the end of her life as she knows it. To Margaret, as well. The serving girl will not join Hero at the end of the flower petal-covered line.

It is not that Hero doesn't fancy quite a few people standing at that altar, (_Father forgive me_ she muses _my friends are much too attractive for their own good) _it is just that she doesn't fancy Claudio as much as she does someone else. Someone else who is not currently standing far off (yet so horribly close) on the red velvet carpet.

There is a quiet sniffle, and neither really care to know which of them did it. It doesn't really matter, now, that they have lost their strength and their will, as if they hadn't lost it years ago when the fact that one is a maid and the other is a noblewomen sunk in on a summer day by the crystal clear stream, one with a lone stocking floating down it and two frantic girls chasing after the frilly thing, not noticing their shoes were gone as well. When Margaret was beaten and scolded but not Hero, they were at a loss. It felt even more hopeless now than it did back in their youth.

Margaret was propositioned just a few nights ago by a certain man named Borachio, and Hero herself is getting married. It didn't matter now that they had loved each other in secret for as long as they could walk, talk, and play. What first started as a tentative friendship between lessons (for Hero) and chores (for Margaret) became snuggling under piles of clean sheets in the winter and slipping into cupboards to hide from the cook. What began as simply borrowing clothes (of Hero's) and makeup (made clumsily by Margaret) became tokens of love and picking wild flowers when they could escape the confines of the men around them. Old nannies failing to catch them as they stole off with a few geldings and mares into the forest and then later bribing the huffing woman to keep quiet was a glorious memory of the past. Such memories and niceties were about to come to a screeching halt.

Margaret patted down her deep blue dress, foregoing her fancy, matching gloves. Her heart wasn't in it, and she'd rather have to look at her scarred and dry hands than try to hide them. She was done with hiding things, thank you very much. In fact, she was so done with hiding things- and she was very good at hiding things, especially with Hero- that she was finished with almost everything about her life at this point. Brazenly, she slipped her rough right hand into the silky left one of Hero. There was a long (a short) moment, before each woman opened her mouth to claim, "I love-"

...There was a bang on the shutters.

. . .

Benedict stood before Beatrice along with several other people on the red velvet-covered altar, admiring his partner in her soft blue dress. _What a beautiful wedding! _He thought, scanning the small crowd in the equally small church. _I just hope I've done the right thing..._

Beatrice was oblivious, of course, as was everyone else in the entire town, to the current plot. Such a plot thought up by the extreme mastermind-or 'cute lousy git' as Beatrice would call him- was devious in their time, but was for an obvious beneficial outcome (the happiness of his friends, Hero and Margaret.)

_The tricky part was-_

There was a loud bang on the ornamental door at the other end of the aisle, startling quite a few people near the back. Neither the friar nor Claudio noticed anything, given that the abbot was drop-dead drunk and the suitor had a stormy face to begin with.

_-on how to get the beast-_

There was a wild, feral sound, accompanied by a very loud crash as the decorated door burst into several large splinters of pulchritudinous wood.

_-to fit through that tiny back shutter._

A grandiose buckskin stallion erupted from those splinters, rearing its head and foaming in fury. On its capacious back (holding on for their dear lives) sat Hero and Margaret.

Amidst the chaos of people scattering and knocking pews over, Beatrice's screech of '_what did you do?' _was lost to everyone but Benedict, who was smiling bravely as his love battered him with her pretty blue gloved hands, smacking his face and chest in a flurry.

Also lost was Claudio's shaky, but loud, exclamation of '_Hero! I will expose you for-' _before he was, embarrassingly, tossed aside by the inebriated priest fleeing in the wrong direction. A certain woman named Ursula held him down, betting that his misplaced fury would cause him to rise again.

_What a beautiful wedding, indeed! _

There were few people thinking this- Hero, Margaret, Benedict, and (begrudgingly) Beatrice- and those people watched as the scampering church-goers all fled out of the door. The impressive horse that the two lovebirds rode upon was antsy, ready to bolt as soon as the last poor fellow got out of his way.

As said 'poor fellow' finally slipped down the wooden stairs in a hurry, the beast and his riders were whisked out and beyond the village, hurrying to the forests and less-traveled paths.

With all of the noise and grandeur gone, the dust began to settle, allowing a view of how completely overturned the church was. Beatrice had ceased her attack- _for now- _and was staring at Ursula rumbling a throaty laugh atop a certain groom. Claudio was too busy trying to get the woman off to notice much else, and not too far from the pair sat Lenato, who began to wail.

"Hero! Get back here this instant!" He rose to his feet, stomping half-heartedly towards the broken church doors, "I won't allow you to run off with... _Is that a maid? Is that Margaret?_ It is blasphemy, all of it!" When he realized that neither maid nor daughter was coming back, he turned around and... Began to wail some more.

"Oh, woe! If only I had a weapon to end myself with! Such slander, such disgrace! I should have known! I should have... prevented..." Running out of breath, his eyes wandered searchingly before landing on Benedict, "Benedict, you fool, do you-"

He was rightly interrupted by Beatrice, who had hiked up her dress to reveal a hidden knife at her thigh, in which she hurriedly unhooked the dagger and tossed it loosely to Lenato, "Oh, shut up you old sod. Do everyone a favor and- _Benedict I see you trying to climb out that window don't you dare, get back here-" _

As it was, Margaret and Hero were riding into a literal sunset, revisiting their old paths and deciding as to where to go next. _Anywhere but here, _they both quickly decided, and gripped hard at the wild mane of the equally wild stallion as he spirited them off to freedom.

. . .

Notes: Finite! I backpedaled as fast as I could and turned it into a sweet story. Sweet, indeed!

I wrote this under the pretense that I would feel better about myself. And, I do! Do you know how many queer characters are simply introduced then killed off in media? More often than not, and it is very _very disappointing_, also very troubling. Is that how queer people are seen? I want no part of it, so, to lighten things up, I invented a love story! Everything needs more lesbians, so I just added them. Claudio is kind of a clot-pole, anyway. I understand that 'back then', virginity in women was seen as something to obtain and protect (eww), but such reasons only explain, and do not excuse. So, why not 'dump Claudio' and 'marry Margaret.' Margaret was already her personal maid, right? Shouldn't be too hard. Perhaps I will find a few typos later, but, for now, I am content with this.

Yes, I will be naming this 'Shakespearean Lesbians.' It's a catchy title. I bet my left toe there are hundreds if not thousands of stories similar to this one, but, I also bet my right toe that no one has named one 'Shakespearean Lesbians' yet. I will learn to walk without them, in this case.


End file.
